fixBuffalo

There's a slight lag here. Mayor Brown takes the stage at the 36 minute mark. So slide the thingy to the right to miss the air.
I'm running the audio in the background and hearing this for the first time.

I drove by Queen of Peace last week and noticed the sign.

It was too cold and snowy today for what's left. Next week.

Marketing starts somewhere. This is a good sign!

Smart City is a weekly, hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life, the people, places, Create Document ideas and trends shaping cities. Host Carol Coletta talks with national and international public policy experts, elected officials, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others for a penetrating discussion of urban issues.

This weekend...

• Does America have a transportation strategy? We'll speak with David Goldberg of the group Transportation for America to find out what realtors, civic leaders, urban planners and non-profit organizations are doing to tackle the problem of how we get around.

• And we'll speak with John Campbell about one of the most exciting revitalization projects happening in North America, the Toronto Waterfront. The Waterfront works across a broad sector of public and private organizations to create parks, public spaces and cultural institutions along Toronto's shore aimed at reducing sprawl and developing sustainable communities.

__________________________________________________________________________
Artspace • BAVPA • Woodlawn Row Houses • fixBuffalo flickr
Creative Class • Shrinking Cities • Saturdays in the neighborhood

Details and map.

Buffalo ReUse gets a shout-out in Arieff's musings about suburbia.
An amazing comment stream after Arieff's post shouldn't be missed.

While driving down Fillmore Avenue last weekend a friend and I noticed the boarded and crumbling facades of so many houses and buildings. We never noticed 830 Fillmore, yet a few days later 830 Fillmore made the news. We'd driven down Fillmore dozens of times over the past year and for the first time really took note of how it's been sliding from bad to something beyond our imagination.
It's hard not to become numb to the whole experience of driving or walking by boarded-up or fire ravished and abandonded houses here on the City's east side. There are simply so many. It's hard to keep track as every week a few more houses are added to the list. Buildings crumble, houses are demolished and once thriving businesses and entire industries are literally cut up for scrap and shipped off on the slow boat to China or to a landfill in Ohio. Yet it's hard not to imagine that every house still standing tells a story - about the people who lived in the neighborhood, built and took care of the house and in so many cases just left. I've met dozens of people - mostlly through blogging and walking the neighborhoods - that tell a similar story, they couldn't take the daily threats and level of crime and in most cases simply left. Long wrenching stories about leaving and loss. I mean where in the trajectory of the 'American dream' did we ever imagine or learn how to leave behind the family home? Now, in the country's second poorest city this is becoming part of our narrative. It's a script that is running constantly and one that is increasingly mediated by the foreclosure crisis.

On Wednesday morning last week I received an email from Dick Kern, the patron saint of so many housing activists here in Buffalo, about the recent news - another woman's body had been found in an abandoned house. Just a few days after driving by 830 Fillmore, presumably the woman's body may have already been there, the news arrives.

The body of a woman was found inside an abandoned house at 830 Fillmore Ave. this morning, authorities said. A Rural Metro Ambulance crew arrived at the structure at about 9:30 am after a call was placed from a pay phone at 880 Fillmore alerting officials of the situation. Police were summoned by Rural Metro after the body was found at the house. Officers are investigating the circumstances of the death.

Yes, the house made the news. A scan of Lexis/Nexis this evening, a full week after the woman's body was found, nothing more - absent is the woman's name and the cause of death. This block of Fillmore Avenue, between Sycamore and Broadway, is by any available metric - which isn't saying much - the avenue's most stable block. On Wednesday afternoon when another friend accompanied me to the scene we noticed that the sidewalks and steps at 830 Fillmore had just been shoveled and black plastic trash bag curtains had been hung in the living room windows. There was no crime tape, just a sun faded building permit tacked to the inside window frame was all we could see. After snapping the pic, we quickly left.

Common Council President/Fillmore District Councilman David Franzcyk lives a few doors away at 858 Fillmore. There remains no solace for the surviving family of the woman who's body was found next door or any news about how she died.

This isn't the first time that a woman's body was found in an abandoned house in the immediate neighborhood. Back in July 2006 the body of Yvonne Peterson was found just around the corner at 830 Sycamore Street - see: Buffalo's Death Row. Earlier that summer the partially decomposed body of Shawn Luchey was found two blocks from Artspace - here - in another abandoned house.

While walking my Cold Springs neighborhood on a snowy night I now pass a successful rehab on Glenwood Avenue where new residents have installed a wood burning stove (and another soon to follow on East Utica, story in the works). The sweet and pungent smell of burning hardwood on a cold snowy night always triggers a Vermont moment for me and takes me to a place - as certain smells always do - where I always thought everything was going to be ok and that things in the end would always work out. Yet, factor in a couple dozen abandonded and boarded up houses in the neighborhood, we - those of us who stayed or have decided to reclaim an abandoned house in the neighborhood - know differently. How many crimes linger behind the boards? Literally, how many bodies?

While City Hall pretends to have a plan - There is No Plan - neighborhood residents know better.

On Saturday I walked around the construction site at City Honors and peeked into what's going to be the new all-high natatorium.

Check out the City Honors archive for additional information. I've added a few additional pics to the growing City Honors flickr series.

Remember Inviting Buffalo? The blog debuted last Fall and promised to be a conduit between the City's Department of Strategic Planning and residents interested in innovative neighborhood projects. Inviting Buffalo was last updated 10 weeks ago. The flickr picture stream in the blog's sidebar has some very recent pics from a conference in Italy.

Seems like Inviting Buffalo ran out of gas. Anyone know?

__________________________________________________________________________

City Hall has extended the deadline. City property owners have untill January 21st to file a challenge to their new property tax assesment. Friday's Buffalo News reported:
The forms needed to do so are available here - Challenging the City.

On Saturday afternoon I drove right by and didn't notice - 2 Girard is gone. Today I went back for pics. I last mentioned this amazing Queen Anne single family home in September 2007 - here - when I learned that a neighborhood organization was going to purchase and renovate it.
Last July, as the Mayor's bulldozers were ramping up for his '5x5' demolition plan, the Mayor was quoted in a Buffalo News article - here:
No choice? 2 Girard was a viable structure - a rehab opportunity in waiting.

I remember commenting to my friend as we entered the '33' at Best Street on Saturday afternoon - 'every time i drive along this stretch i feel as though i add insult to injury' - and am rather embarrassed now not to have noticed that 2 Girard was already gone. It was demolished the day after Christmas.
The Mayor reportedly was considering a press event at 2 Girard prior to the demolition and was advised not to. He moved to a burn out on Jefferson Avenue at the last minute.

To see the full impact of what we have lost, visit Historic Aerials - here, for a look at what the neighborhood was like in 1958. Take a moment to compare the 1958 map with the 2006 image, using the convenient slider tool. Staggering.
Here's the link to eleven 2 Girard posts - going back to March 2005 - including some interior pics.

Saturday morning Artspace Neighborhood walks will begin at 10am this year. Meet-up is across the street at the Sonic Cafe - here's the map - every Saturday.

There are a number of very exciting renovations and new developments happening in the neighborhood and periodically we'll be joined by a growing number of people who are moving into the neighborhood and making places - that would have been demolished and trucked off to a landfill - their home.
Here's the link to recent Saturdays around the neighborhood and flickr series of this past Fall's neighborhood walks. Consider joining me on Saturday mornings at 10am and learn more about this emerging neighborhood. The walk lasts about an hour - rain, snow or shine!

If you're interested in additional information check out two sections of my 'building & issues Index' - Coe Place and Artspace. A cultural assets map may help further orient you to the neighborhood.

See you on Saturday!

As seen on Fillmore Avenue this afternoon.